With rapid development of the communication technology, information exchange among people appears more and more frequently. A single mobile phone may not meet the needs of people, especially those engaged in marketing or management, who may have to carry two or more mobile phones to meet the communication requirements, which brings inconvenience. Nowadays, multi-SIM multi-standby communication devices are emerging, which makes a user only need to carry one communication device with more than one Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card or more than one Universal Subscriber Identity Module (USIM) card. It is far more convenient than the conventional way to carry several mobile phones.
Based on the Second Generation (2G) wireless network technology, Globe System of Mobile Communication (GSM) is one of the most widely used mobile communication systems. In general, if a subscriber wants to use multiple phone numbers in a single device in GSM system, the following solutions may be employed.
Firstly a multi-SIM single-standby communication device may be used. In this communication device, there is more than one SIM card simultaneously, however, only one SIM card can be used (be set in a standby state) at the same time, and switching among the multiple SIM cards is executed by hardware circuits, which is generally selected when the device is powered on. Due to the effect of a protocol stack, the switching among the multiple SIM cards can not be executed dynamically when the communication device is in operation. For this matter, the mobile phone system needs to be rebooted (mainly reboot protocol stack or upper-layer software) to switch among the multiple SIM cards.
Secondly, a multi-SIM multi-standby communication device may be used to overcome the disadvantages in the multi-SIM single-standby communication device, which multiple SIM cards can be standby simultaneously just like carrying multiple mobile phones, thereby improving practical application greatly.
An early multi-SIM multi-standby communication device actually possesses multiple sets of systems, generally two, each of which has a radio frequency (RF) transceiver module, a base band processing module, and a protocol stack respectively. The communication device having multiple systems can realize multiple SIM cards respectively in standby or communicating state, which is also referred to as a multi-SIM multi-standby multi-communicating communication device. However, this kind of communication device, with multiple systems utilized, suffers additional cost and power consumption, and a short standby time, which causes inconvenience for the users.
Later multi-SIM multi-standby mobile phone is a kind of multi-SIM multi-standby single-communicating communication device, which uses only one set of communication module, including such as a RF transceiver module and a base band processing module, compared with the early multiple systems. Because the upper protocol stacks needs to cooperate, the protocol stacks which operate independently in the early multi-SIM multi-standby multi-communicating communication device needs a close integration. Although the practical operation becomes more complicated, the multi-SIM multi-standby function may be achieved. Generally, multiple cards may be set in standby states simultaneously by receiving paging messages and broadcast messages in turn under the control of the protocol stacks. In the multi-SIM multi-standby single-communicating communication device, while one SIM card is conducting a voice business, the other SIM cards are unable to receive paging message and broadcast message and to transmit communication signaling.
Nowadays, with development of the Third Generation (3G) mobile communication technology, 3G service based on such as Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA), or Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) is popularized throughout the country, and more and more people start to use 3G mobile phones. However, the number of users using 2G mobile phones is still in the majority. Accordingly, during the transitional period from 2G to 3G, it appears quite convenient for one mobile phone to support both the 2G and 3G standby modes.
Regardless of 2G; 3G, or the Long Term Evolution (LTE) of 3G system, there is a radio interface according to the communication protocol, such as a Uu interface for a 3G system, when a mobile phone communicates with a base station. All physical channels take three-layer structure with respect to timeslots, radio frames and system frame numbering. As for a GSM system, one frame includes 8 time slots (TS), 26 or 51 frames are multiplexed to constitute one multiframe, multiple multiframes constitute one superframe, and multiple superframes constitute one hyperframe. As for a TD-SCDMA system, one sub-frame length is 5 ms, which includes 7 normal time slots and 3 special time slots. Two sub-frames constitute a radio frame. As for a WCDMA system, a radio frame with a duration of 10 ms for a dedicated physical control channel or a dedicated physical data channel has 5 sub-frames. Each sub-frame includes 3 time slots, so each radio frame includes 15 time slots. However, for a Primary Common Control Physical Channel (P-CCPCH), it is a radio frame with a duration of 10 ms which includes 15 time slots rather than any sub-frame. Therefore, the radio frame of both TD-SCDMA and WCDMA has the same length of 10 ms. As for the Long Term Evolution (LIE) of a 3G system, the radio frame has two kinds of structure. For Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) LTE, one radio frame with a duration of 10 ms is divided into 10 sub-frames, and each sub-frame includes 2 time slots. For Time Division Duplex (TD) LIE, one radio frame with a duration of 10 ms is divided into two half-frames. Each half-frame includes 5 sub-frames, and each sub-frame includes 2 time slots.
Nowadays, a communication terminal (e.g. a mobile phone) having multiple communication modes is commonly operated with a multi-SIM multi-standby multi-communicating system to achieve the multi-SIM multi-standby function, that is, multiple sets of communication modules, each of which includes an RF transceiver module, a base band processing module, and a protocol stack, are used, and each set of communication module is employed to achieve the standby or communication function for one communication mode. As shown in FIG. 1, a dual-mode dual-SIM dual-standby communication terminal is taken as an example. FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a dual-mode dual-SIM dual-standby communication terminal according to the prior art. The dual-mode dual-SIM dual-standby communication terminal employs two RF transceiver modules which are operated independently, one is the TD-SCDMA RF transceiver module 101a for the TD-SCDMA mode, and the other is the GSM RF transceiver module 101b for the GSM mode. As for base band, there are two types of structures based on the design of different manufacturers. In the first type, two base band processing modules operate independently. As shown in FIG. 1, the base band processing module 102 includes a TD-SCDMA base band processing module 102a and a GSM base band processing module 102b which respectively process signals transmitted/received through TD-SCDMA RF transceiver module 101a and GSM RF transceiver module 101b. Besides, the TD-SCDMA base band processing module 102a may interact with the GSM base band processing module 102b. In the second type, only one base band processing module is provided. In the TD-SCDMA mode, a Universal Subscriber Identity Module (USIM) card 103a may achieve the standby or communication function through the TD-SCDMA base band processing module 102a and the TD-SCDMA RF transceiver module 101a. In the GSM mode, a SIM card 103b may achieve the standby or communication function through the GSM base band processing module 102b and the GSM RE transceiver module 101b. FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a dual-mode dual-SIM dual-standby communication terminal operable in TD-SCDMA/GSM modes. In fact, a SIM card is applicable in the TD-SCDMA mode, and a USIM card is also applicable in the GSM mode. In addition, the structure of a dual-mode dual-SIM dual-standby communication terminal operable in WCDMA/GSM is similar to that in TD-SCDMA/GSM, except that TD-SCDMA modules need be replaced with WCDMA modules.
As mentioned above, this kind of mobile phone, with multiple systems utilized, suffers an additional cost and power consumption, a short standby time, and an increased size, which causes inconvenience. Despite this, as for the RF transceiver module, there exists co-channel interference. For example, while GSM operates at 1900 MHz and TD-SCDMA operates at 2 GHz, the problem of co-channel interference arises between the RF transceiver modules due to the very close operating frequencies, which may seriously influence the transmission/reception performance. A single RF transceiver module may be used to solve the problem of co-channel interference, but a new problem of receiving conflict is introduced. For example, in a dual-SIM dual-standby mobile phone, one card needs to receive paging message or broadcast message when another card is receiving paging message or broadcast message. However, because there is only one RF transceiver module and the two SIM cards can not receive messages simultaneously, the problem of receiving conflict arises. Therefore, it is desirable to solve the problem of receiving conflict for the multi-mode multi SIM multi-standby mobile phone in the standby state.
Related information may refer to Chinese patent application No. 201010278680.5 which discloses a solution to receiving conflict for a multi-SIM multi-standby communication terminal. However, the disclosure is only applicable to a single-mode situation, in which the receiving conflict is caused by the signal asynchronism of base station, but is not applicable to a multi-mode situation.